


A Stitch from the Heart

by 7DaysofWolves



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas Presents, M/M, The Reapfist is there as an established relationship but is not the focal point, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 22:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13109352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7DaysofWolves/pseuds/7DaysofWolves
Summary: Gabriel never expected to continue with his tradition of knitting ugly Christmas sweaters, but for the people in Talon he cares about, he feels compelled to before the Christmas Eve gift exchange.





	A Stitch from the Heart

Gabe was sitting on his bed as he knit, his portable speaker blasting his Christmas playlist consisting of gnarly electric violin and hard rock interpretations of the classic seasonal songs. One of the most common names on his playlist was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra due to their rock sound and their tendency for pyrotechnics and other dramatics during their live shows. There was even an odd song called “Gothic Christmas” that always got a laugh out of Gabe when he listened to it during this time of year.

The intense nature of the songs on his playlist was able to help Gabe keep up with the brisk pace he needed to be able to complete his project in time to gift it on Christmas Eve. In all honesty, he was surprised to be doing this, not that he was trying to finish a sweater only the night before Christmas Eve (sweaters do take a while and for the years he had been doing this he was almost always working up to the last day) but that he had even started one at all. 

When he became Reaper and joined Talon, he didn’t expect that he would carry on with any of his holiday traditions. He had thought that as soon as he made that decision that from that day forth he’d be going through life closed off and alone. He hadn’t expected some of the people he worked with to worm his way into his heart. 

Last year he had made a new sweater to replace Amélie’s old one. The one he had originally made her had been from before she was brainwashed, from when she and Gerard had still been happily married. In her becoming Widowmaker, she had left behind almost every trace of her former life, including the old sweater. He had given the couple a set of sweaters so that if they stood side by side, the sweaters would come together to make a wreath of holly in the shape of a heart. On her side, he found some pale pink ribbon to stitch intertwined with the wreath to allude to her love of ballet. He knew that she couldn’t feel the winter cold, that she couldn’t feel anything at all, but seeing her standing outside in the winter air with the blankest expression filled him with regret that this is what had become of her. In that moment, he wanted to give her some semblance of normality, of emotion. The sweater he made for Amélie that year had been different than all the others he had made before. Everything that had come before that sweater derived its charm from its sheer ugliness, all the enjoyment was purely ironic, but this one was beautiful, no irony involved. On it he had depicted Clara and the nutcracker dancing together as the whirling pieces of a music box. He had knitted shiny beads throughout the blue of the sweater to represent the falling snow. When he had given it to her, there was a slight twitch of her mouth and despite her earlier statements of not feeling the cold, she wore it throughout the night.

It was funny how this entire tradition had started. It had been right after recruiting McCree into Blackwatch. He had had a lot of trouble adjusting between narrowly dodging prison and leaving behind everything he had known for this organization. Gabe had wanted to help him feel like this arrangement didn’t have to be an antagonistic one and to maybe give him a source of comfort. The sweater he had made him was red and yellow and had ‘BAMF’ on it to match with his belt buckle. When Gabe gave McCree that sweater, McCree burst into a full-hearted laugh. Putting on the sweater and seeing how it looked on him only made him laugh harder and his laughter didn’t let up until after giving Gabe an extended bear hug. “Thanks jefe,” he said as the laughter slowly died down. “I love it.”

From that point on, the sweater making only accelerated. He had made one for many of his friends in Overwatch. He had made a blue one for Jack that had a cabin on it and said “Merry Christmas,” one for Ana that looked like a wreath of holly except it was made out of cups of tea, and one for Pharah that had doves flying all over it carrying mistletoe in their beaks. He did for so many years that there were bets going on as to who the next person would be to receive a custom-made sweater from Gabe. 

He had been so convinced that all of that was behind him, but now he had a sweater for Sombra laying beside him and was currently in the process of making one for his lover Akande. The hardest part of this hadn’t been determining what silly pattern to make for him, it had been trying to keep this sweater out of his sights. It wasn’t easy hiding so many balls of yarn as well as the work in progress. He had shown Akande Sombra’s sweater (which he had finished ridiculously ahead of schedule) to throw him off. 

The playlist was only a few songs from the end and the clock had struck midnight indicating the beginning of Christmas Eve when Gabe finally started to cast off the final row of the sweater. Gabe took the little that remained of his gold colored yarn to start stitching the body and the arms of the sweater together sighing in relief that he would be done in time and that with his precise calculations he had just enough yarn to finish the project. 

As soon as he finished the stitching he wrapped up both sweaters and went to bed so that he would be ready to give his gifts to them in the evening.

 

They were sitting in Gabe’s living room, presents and Christmas snacks spread out before them. Especially prevalent were all the cookies Gabe had spent the day baking so that they could have fun frosting them together. Most of them had turned out well like the trees, snowflakes, and stars, but the batch of reindeer had turned out so deformed that they were lovingly referred to as Rudolph the Eldritch horror throughout the night. They were munching on cookies as the gift giving began. 

Sombra was the first to give out her presents. She gave Amélie a plush spider that was equipped with an infrared visor that Amélie immediately named Lola. She gave Akande a teddy bear that she had put a teddy-bear sized replica of his Doomfist gauntlet on. They spent a while trying to come up with names for the bear until Akande decided on the name One Punch. Gabe opened his and keeping with the theme it was also a plushy. This one was a darling little barn owl. Gabe squeaked at how adorable the owl was which got a laugh out of Sombra and Akande. He ended up naming her Minerva.

Like, Sombra, Amélie’s gifts also had a theme. She gave all of them bottles of her specialty wine but each of them were different in the labeling of the wine. Sombra got one that was labeled with “Hack the Planet”, Akande’s was “Superhero landing”, and Gabe’s was “Edge Lord.” 

“Gabe, do you have a corkscrew?” 

“Give me a moment.” Gabe got up from the couch, carrying Minerva in his arm as he went to find it. After rummaging through his kitchen drawers, he found it and tossed it Sombra’s way. She started unscrewing it and by the time she got it undone, Gabe had come back holding some wineglasses for them all. 

Sombra started pouring some of the wine for all of them and when she finished, she raised her glass and said, “To hacking the planet.”

“To hacking the planet,” they all responded. Gabe put a straw in his glass before taking a sip from the wine. It had an exquisite flavor with a cold crispness to it. It felt right at home with the cold winter storm going on around them.

Next was Akande. He handed the small wrapped gift to Amélie. It was a gift card to one of the spas close to their main base. “Figured you could use the rest after all of your hard work,” Akande said.

“Thank you,” Amélie said. “I’ll certainly need it if I have another run-in with Tracer.”

After that, he handed Sombra her gift. Inside there was a nice keyboard that had pink neon lighting between the individual keys. “This will be great for when I’m doing all my hacking,” she remarked. “Thank you Akande.”

When he got to Gabe, he handed him the wrapped packaging, awaiting his reaction to it. He carefully undid the wrapping. When he took enough of it off, in front of him was a mask reminiscent of the Phantom of the Opera. The part that was in the shape of the Phantom’s mask was an ivory color. There was a layer beneath it to cover the other half of his face that was silver and had rose filigree engraved into it. “It’s beautiful,” Gabriel breathed out. He was tracing the lines of the mask, the intricate filigree in admiration. After feeling all the contours of it, he got up and with his back to the rest of them, he took off his current mask and put this new one on in its place. It sat as comfortably on his face as his regular mask. Turning around to show off the mask he said, “A perfect fit.”

He then burst into song, singing the main melody of the Phantom of the Opera complete with dramatic gestures. At the end of it all, Gabriel went back to the couch and curled up onto Akande’s lap, leaning his head against his shoulder. “I love you so much.”

Gabe grabbed the gifts he had from off the table and gave Amélie her gift. It was in a jewelry box, so she already had a pretty good idea of what it was before opening it. When she opened the box, it was a necklace that was made from blood red blown glass. She put it on and it rested over the sweater Gabe had knit her last year. 

He then gave Sombra and Akande their gifts at the same time. Sombra detecting that this wasn’t a fragile gift, shredded through the wrapping paper like a cat. It was a purple sweater and in the center was her skull logo wearing a bright red Santa hat. “Gabito, es tan lindo.” She held the sweater up to her chest and seeing that it was the right size took off her signature jacket and put the sweater on instead. Sombra started posing in it. After several poses, Sombra sat back on the couch and snuggled into the coziness of her sweater.

Akande opened his gift. Seeing that it was a sweater, he gently brushed his hand against the gold of the sweater. It depicted Rudolph on his hind legs, kicking into the air to fight off a legion of enemy reindeer. “Come at the king, you better not miss,” Akande read off of the sweater. He put it on over his shirt and kissed Gabe on the temple of his mask. “It’s perfect,” he said as he nuzzled his neck. 

Gabe could feel himself blushing heavily at that, “Thank you.” He reached for Akande’s hand, intertwining their fingers together.

The rest of the night was spent reminiscing over the events of the past year. Some of the stories elicited a ruckus laughter from them all while others took the night towards a more somber mood. Despite this, Gabe could say that this night was the happiest he’s been a while. They spent the night talking into the early hours of Christmas Day, and by the time they were all too tired to continue talking, the just crashed in the living room, illuminated by all the Christmas lights.


End file.
